Research on urban cultures naturally focuses on their defining institution, the city, and the lifeways, or cultural forms, that grow up within cities. Urban scholarship has steadily progressed toward a conception of cities and urban cultures that is free of ethnocentrism, with broad cross-cultural and historical validity.

Well into the 20th century conceptions of the city often proceeded as if there were only one authentic or typical form. From his research on the ... (100 of 6,747 words)